


Coalition

by flawedamythyst



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: British Politics AU, Hung Parliament, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-01
Updated: 2010-06-01
Packaged: 2018-10-16 10:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10569324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: "Well, without a clear majority of 326 seats, neither Labour nor the Conservatives have a clear mandate to form a government. The next few days are going to see a lot of political manoeuvring as they both try to put together a coalition government, probably with the Liberal Democrats, but we can't rule out a multi-party coalition with some of the smaller parties either."J2 AU of the 2010 UK general election.





	

"So, Nick, what does this election result mean?"

"Well, without a clear majority of 326 seats, neither Labour nor the Conservatives have a clear mandate to form a government. The next few days are going to see a lot of political manoeuvring as they both try to put together a coalition government, probably with the Liberal Democrats, but we can't rule out a multi-party coalition with some of the smaller parties either."

Jensen sighed and flicked off the telly, then glanced around at the faces of his advisers. "Well," he said heavily, "it could have been worse."

Jim Beaver snorted and pulled off his Vote Conservative cap to run a hand through his thinning hair. "If Labour had managed a clear majority," he said, "at least we'd know what we were doing."

"We know what we're doing," said Chris. "Jensen's going to get into bed with the enemy."

He gave Jensen a tiny private smirk, and Jensen glared at him. One drunken confession about appreciating certain aspects of the leader of the Liberal Democrats more than he should, and he was never allowed to forget it.

The phone rang and Jim picked it up. "Jim Beaver," he barked out, then made a face. He held the phone out to Jensen. "For you," he said. "It's Padalecki."

Jensen took the phone with a deep breath. "This is Jensen Ackles," he said.

"It's Jared," said the voice on the other end, as familiarly as if they were friends instead of political opponents. "I thought you might want to talk to me."

"You're willing to talk about forming a coalition?" asked Jensen.

"You bet I am," said Jared, still sounding overly cheerful. "Not right now, because we've got a hell of a party going on here that I really want to get back to, but how's tomorrow morning for you?"

"A party?" asked Jensen with a frown. "What the hell are you guys celebrating? You only won fifty seats."

"Fifty-seven," corrected Jared. "We're not really celebrating, we just had all the alcohol already and thought it would be a waste not to use it." There was a muffled shout somewhere in the background and he swore. "Shit, hang on." There was a thump, and Jensen heard Jared's voice yelling. "Chad! CHAD! Get off the table! Show some decorum, you're a member of parliament!"

"Hell YEAH I am!" crowed the distinctive voice of the new M.P. for Twickenham. "Who wants to MOTHERFUCKING TOUCH ME?"

Jensen rubbed at his forehead tiredly. These were the people he was going to have to negotiate with in order to form a government? Maybe he'd just duck out and let Kurt Fuller deal with them – another four years of Labour wouldn't drive the country too much further into the ground, surely?

"Hey, I've got to go," said Jared, back on the phone, "but I'll be at your office at 9 tomorrow, okay?"

"Right," said Jensen, but he'd already hung up. He put down the phone and looked miserably around at the others. "Why the hell did I take this job again?"

"Your insane lust for power," Chris reminded him. "Come on, let's go have a drink. You can worry about wooing Padalecki in the morning."

Jensen glared at him again, then followed him out of the office to the Conservatives' own election party. Compared to what he'd heard on the phone, the trays of nibbles and tall flutes of champagne looked a little tame, but he told himself stoutly that that just meant they took the business of government more seriously.

 

****

 

He arrived in his office the next morning to find a tourist postcard of Downing Street on his desk. _Wish you were here?_ was scrawled on the back in Fuller's distinctive messy handwriting. Jensen scowled and dropped it in the bin.

"Traci," he said into his intercom, "I'm going to need coffee. A lot of really strong coffee." If he was going to have to charm Jared Padalecki this morning, he was going to need some serious fortification first.

Jared was fifteen minutes early. He practically bounced into the office, his hair flying everywhere and looking far too awake and alert for someone who'd been partying the night before.

"Jensen," he greeted him, holding out his hand. "Congratulations on getting re-elected."

"You too," replied Jensen, shaking it and trying to sound genuinely pleased to see him rather than over-tired and dreading this. "Can my assistant get you anything before we start? Tea, coffee?"

"Coffee would be great," said Jared. "And do you have any food? I'm starving."

"Of course," said Jensen. He glanced at Traci, who was hovering by the door. "Bring some danishes or something," he said, and she nodded before leaving them alone.

Jared settled into a chair, making it look tiny beneath him. He'd already taken off his jacket and left it somewhere, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, exposing his strong, muscular forearms. Jensen mentally scowled, wondering if that was a deliberate distraction technique – it was only the beginning of May, after all. No one could possibly be warm enough to have to show off that much flesh.

He sat down and put on his most professional face, as if he'd never consider perving on another M.P.'s arms. "I can offer you a seat in the Cabinet and a role as one of my main political advisers," he said, wanting to get this over as quickly as possible. It had been hard enough at the debates, seeing Jared bound around the stage, charming the whole country with his blinding grin and excited optimism. Negotiating a coalition government without just jumping him was going to be a nightmare.

Jared snorted. "You can offer me a whole lot more than that. You won't even have a Cabinet without me. We're going to get several seats in the Cabinet, we're going to get a real move on electoral reform, and we're going to have a massive overhaul of the Budget."

"Electoral reform isn't on the table," said Jensen firmly. "And we're already planning an overhaul of the Budget."

"Everything's on the table," contradicted Jared. "You're not getting our support in exchange for peanuts, Jensen. And your Budget plan is ridiculous."

And just like that, Jensen wasn't thinking about his arms, or how much he wanted to fuck him, he was thinking about how to get the best deal out of him, what was worth sacrificing and what the voters were most likely to support. He'd been in politics since he was at university – he knew how to do this.

Debating with Jared over their political differences, getting to talk with an intelligent person about the complexities of government, and being able to get a real discussion going after weeks of talking to uninformed voters reminded Jensen why he'd got into politics in the first place. He found himself getting really into it, sitting forward in his chair and making hand gestures to emphasise his points. Jared got even more carried away, threatening to sweep the lamp off Jensen's desk several times, and Jensen couldn't help but admire how good he looked when he was so engaged with what he was saying, just like he had been at the debates.

It was lunchtime before they stopped. Jared sat back with a sigh, flexing his shoulders so that his muscles rippled under his shirt and derailed whatever Jensen had been saying about the stupidity of cutting the Armed Forces's budget for Trident.

"I don't think we're going to get much further right now," Jared said. "And besides, it's definitely time for food. How about we talk to our guys, get yelled at for compromising over too much, then meet again tomorrow?"

Jensen nodded. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

Jared grinned and stood up. "Okay, great." He hesitated, the first time Jensen had ever seen him look less than completely sure of himself. "Hey, you want to get lunch together? No more negotiating or politics, just lunch - if we're going to be working together, we should at least get to know each other, right?"

Jensen blinked in surprise. He'd already been thinking about sending Traci for a sandwich and barricading himself in his office with Jim, Chris and the others, but the idea of lunch with Jared was too good to turn down. "No politics?" he asked.

Jared laughed. "I know, I know – everything is politics, but at least no overt politics, how about that?"

"Sounds good," said Jensen. After all, he was meant to be sweet-talking this man. A bit of schmoozing over lunch couldn't hurt, right?

 

****

 

If anyone got schmoozed over lunch, it was Jensen. He arrived back at his office wondering just how on earth he was going to be able to work with Jared as his Deputy Prime Minister if he couldn't hold a thought for longer than thirty seconds when he was with him before it was derailed by fantasies of what Jared's mouth might taste like or what his body might look like under his slightly ridiculous pale-pink shirt.

The rest of the day was spent on a whole series of meetings with everyone who thought they were important enough to have a say on what he should be doing, until Jensen was ready to scream. When he received a brief note from Margaret Thatcher, detailing all the ways that he was betraying the very fundamentals of the Conservative cause and strongly suggesting he'd had his balls removed, he nearly did.

Chris took one look at his face, plucked the letter from his hands and threw it into the bin alongside the postcard from Fuller. "She's the last person you should be taking advice from on compromising," he said. "I'm not even sure she knows what the word means."

"Here's an idea," said Jim. "How about we make tomorrow's meeting more than just you and Padalecki? Include senior advisers as well – that should stop people complaining about deals made behind closed doors, and a couple more perspectives might make it easier to sort out the things we're really at loggerheads about."

Jensen thought about that for a minute. Jim was probably right, but he couldn't feel a surge of disappointment at not getting another long morning alone with Jared.

"Unless you really wanted to go at it with him one-on-one," added Chris snarkily. It was close enough to what Jensen had been thinking that he felt like an idiot. _You're the leader of the most popular political party in the country,_ he reminded himself. _You're about to be Prime Minister. Stop acting like a schoolgirl with her first crush._

"Yes, let's do that," he said. "Let Jared know I'll be bringing you two. And, I suppose, Robert as well." Robert Wisdom was a prat, but he was influential and represented the more right-wing sections of the party. It would be expected that he'd be in on this.

Chris nodded. "I'll set it up for tomorrow morning."

 

****

 

The next day brought another long round of negotiations. Jensen and Jared had hashed out the easy compromises the day before, and now they were stuck on the things that they both held too important to move on. Having their advisers there as well didn't help as much as Jensen had hoped it would – they'd been opponents for so long that the meeting kept descending into arguments over the pettiest of details, which then devolved into the Lib Dems reminding them for the thousandth time how much they needed them, and the Conservatives responding by pointing out just how few seats they had in the scheme of things.

"Dude," said Chad Michael Murray, and Jensen really had no idea why Jared had included him in this, unless he was hoping that the Conservatives would be so desperate to get out of any room that had him in it that they'd agree to anything, "doesn't matter how many seats we've got – if you want a piece of us, you've got to stop playing silly buggers. We're not some tart you can impress with a flash of bling."

Robert, who had been implicated in a prostitution scandal a couple of years ago, glowered at him. "Not our fault that the only way you'll get a taste of real power is by whoring yourselves out."

"Oh, why don't you suck my member of parliament?" said Chad, making an obscene gesture towards his crotch.

"Okay!" interrupted Jensen quickly, "let's move on. What kind of ministerial positions were you thinking about?"

In the end, they called it a day with only the last few points still needing to be hammered out. Jensen had a charity event to get to that he was probably already going to be late for as it was.

"We'll meet again tomorrow, just the two of us, and finalise the last details," said Jared as he left, and Jensen couldn't help but return the smile he was giving him.

"Sounds like it's a date," muttered Chris close to his ear, and Jensen made sure to tread heavily on his toes as he walked past him.

 

****

 

The charity event was extremely dull, especially as every person he spoke to asked him the same question. "When are we going to have a government?"

Jensen kept a smile on his face and gave a string of non-answers, then escaped as early as he could without being rude. He got back to his flat feeling exhausted and slumped down on the sofa just as his phone vibrated with a text from Jim.

_Check the news,_ it read. Jensen grimaced, wondering what the hell could have gone wrong now, and switched on BBC News 24.

"...reports that Jared Padalecki has met with Kurt Fuller today as well as Jensen Ackles has led to speculations that the Liberal Democrats might form a coalition with Labour rather than the Conservatives, despite Padalecki's statement on election night that 'Labour has lost its mandate to govern.'"

Jensen gaped at the screen, which was showing stock footage of Jared talking in front of some reporters. What the hell?

His phone was already in his hand and he dialled Jared's number without even thinking about it.

"Heya!" said Jared cheerfully. "How was your charity thing?"

"Are you playing me?" demanded Jensen. "What the hell are you doing screwing around with Fuller? I thought we had an agreement!"

"Are you jealous?" asked Jared, sounding both incredulous and amused, which just made Jensen angrier.

"If you're not committed to this coalition," he gritted out, "then you could at least not waste my time."

"I am committed," said Jared, finally growing serious. "It was just a courtesy meeting – Kurt knows as well as we do how this is going to end, and it's not going to be with Labour still in power. Come on, Jensen, you know how this game is played."

"So you haven't just been stalling us on stupid details so that you can keep stringing everyone along until you get the best deal?" asked Jensen, his hand clenching into a fist on his knee.

"No!" said Jared firmly. "Of course not. I'm trying to deal with you as quickly as possible, so that we can form a government and actually get some real work done, but those 'stupid details' are very important to the members of my party, as well as to not an insignificant number of voters."

Jensen took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. He knew that he'd over-reacted – Jared was right, the political game meant that of course he'd have to met with Kurt, if only out of politeness – but somehow that didn't stop the sense of betrayal. "So, you're not discussing a coalition with Labour," he clarified.

Jared let out a long breath. "No," he said. "Just because I'm talking to a guy doesn't mean I'm about to jump into bed with him."

It was late, and Jensen had had a few extremely long days, following on from several weeks of intense campaigning. Despite everything, Jared had managed to slip past his defences with his friendliness and his excited optimism, and Jensen had had a couple too many drinks at the charity event, and it all added up to him just letting slip what he was thinking without any attempt at censorship. "That's what my ex-boyfriend used to say," he muttered tiredly, and then froze in horror the second he'd said it.

There was a long silence on the phone, and then Jared said carefully, "I'm going to assume you didn't mean to say that."

"No," said Jensen, wishing he could bite his tongue out. He'd spent years guarding the secret of his sexuality, dodging questions about his personal life, about why he was single when most politicians made sure to have a wife and family in order to promote the idea of being an 'average family man' to the voters, and he'd just blabbed it out to someone who was still, despite everything, a political rival. He was so screwed. "Are you going to call Rupert Murdoch?"

Jared snorted. "Of course not," he said. "Come on, Jensen – that would be a bit hypocritical, surely?"

"Not really," said Jensen. "It's a damaging secret about a rival – everyone knows you're gay, it's not as if I could use that in retaliation."

"I'm not going to say anything," said Jared again, and Jensen let himself believe him, feeling the tight bands around his chest relax. "I don't believe in outing people without their consent. I just don't understand why you're not already out. I wouldn't say it's made my life any easier, but in this day and age, it's not been a major hindrance either."

"I want to be Prime Minister," said Jensen. "It's what I've always wanted – I want to make this country better, Jared, and I'm not going to let anything get in the way and lose me even a handful of votes – and it would have lost me more than that. It might not have been a major hindrance for you, but you're leading the third party, you only won fifty seats – it's different in the Conservative party – we have a real shot at it, of sorting out the mess Labour's made."

There was silence, and Jensen could almost hear the disapproval in it. "It's not fifty seats," said Jared in the end, sounding serious and a little sad. "I didn't win fifty seats, I won one. Exactly the same number that you did, and exactly the same number as you'd have won even if the electorate had known."

Jensen sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. "Jared..." he started, but Jared cut him off.

"It's late, and I need to get to bed," he said. "I'll see you at our meeting tomorrow morning." He hung up before Jensen could say goodbye, leaving him feeling like an idiot. He tipped his head back on the sofa with a groan, cursing himself and wishing he could just take a do-over for the whole bloody day.

 

****

 

The next morning, he waited nervously in his office for Jared, not sure what reaction he should be expecting. Jared had sounded pretty pissed off on the phone last night, but what right did he have to be? It was Jensen's decision to be out or not, and there was a world of difference between being the leader of the Conservative Party, and always in the public eye as either Leader Of The Opposition or as Prime Minister, and being the leader of the Liberal Democrats. Hell, half the country hadn't had a clue who Jared was until the first of the television debates.

Jared arrived early again and Traci let him straight in to Jensen's office. "Morning," he said cheerfully, and Jensen felt himself relax. "Hope you don't mind, I was running late this morning so I've brought breakfast along with me."

Jared's idea of breakfast turned out to be two bacon butties and a doughnut. Jensen regarded it with a twitch of his eyebrow, then thought back over everything else he'd seen Jared eat in the last few days. "How the hell do you stay in shape?" he asked, slightly awed.

Jared laughed and Jensen felt the last of the tension from last night dissipate. "I think best when I'm working out," he said, "and I've got two dogs that I take for a run every morning."

Jensen nodded, remembering the photos that the press had plastered everywhere once they worked out who Jared was, of him jogging down the street in shorts and a t-shirt, looking so bloody good that Jensen had found it hard to breath when he'd first seen them.

"Now," said Jared, sitting down with as much familiarity as if it were his office, "let's get this damn agreement sorted so that you can start fixing the country."

The reminder of their conversation last night made Jensen feel oddly awkward, but he smiled anyway and sat in his own chair. "Right," he said. "What are the last bits we need to sort out?"

His phone rang before Jared could reply, and Jensen frowned. "Sorry," he said, and answered it.

It was Chris. "Fuller's just started a press conference," he said without wasting time on a greeting. "You'll probably want to watch."

Jensen had to stand up and hunt for the remote before he could click on the TV to see Kurt's familiar and intensely irritating face. He was looking serious, and very tired.

"My resignation as leader of the Labour Party will take effect immediately," he read out to the cameras, "And in this hour I want to thank all my colleagues, ministers..."

Jensen gaped. He'd have thought the old bastard would hold on to power for as long as possible.

"Wow, that was quick," said Jared, who Jensen had completely forgotten was there.

His mind whirled, adding everything up and working out all the political ramifications. "You did this," he said, stunned.

"What?" asked Jared. "How the hell..."

Jensen interrupted him. "You met with him yesterday, and you said he'd need to resign before you'd form a coalition with Labour, and now he has."

"That's not exactly how it went," said Jared, which was as good as an admission to Jensen.

"You _have_ been playing me!" he exclaimed.

"No!" said Jared, standing up so that he was at the same eye-level as Jensen. "I haven't, Jensen, seriously, listen to me."

"I bet you're going to tell the media about me as well," said Jensen, feeling sickened. "Or are you going to wait for the right moment, for when it would hurt my party the most?"

"No," said Jared, stepping forward almost aggressively. "Jesus, Jensen, slow down and listen to me for a moment. You've got it all wrong."

"Why else would a man like Fuller resign?" asked Jensen.

"Because he was tired?" suggested Jared. "Because he was making his party less popular by the day just by being its leader, and knew it? I mentioned it, but not as the only thing preventing a Lib Dem-Labour coalition, just as one of several things. They don't have as many seats as you guys so they don't have the right to form a government unless you can't, and that's what I told him." He stepped even closer and took hold of Jensen's shoulders as if he was going to force him to listen. "Jensen, the only person I want to form a coalition with is you."

He was so close, his gaze fixed on Jensen's as if he could make him believe just from the look in his eyes alone, and Jensen couldn't resist any longer. He closed the distance between their mouths and kissed Jared fiercely, pulling him tight against his body. When Jared responded, kissing him back as if he'd spent just as long as Jensen fantasising about this, he couldn't stop himself from letting out a moan.

Jared pulled back, resting his forehead against Jensen's, his fingers still digging tightly into Jensen's shoulders. "We're going to form a government," he said a rough, low voice. "We're going to fix this country, solve the deficit, everything."

"Okay," agreed Jensen breathlessly, feeling dazed. "Feels like we could do anything right now."

Jared laughed for a moment, and then pulled Jensen in for another kiss.

 

[ ](http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v95/flawedamythyst/Fic/?action=view&current=HungParliament.jpg)

Graphic by Sapphic85


End file.
